Smartwatches and fitness bands dominate the wearables market

SMARTWATCHES AND FITNESS BANDS are dominating the wearables market, according to the beancounters at CCS Insight.

The analysts found that wrist wearables are currently king, and keep things like smart glasses and smart trousers from the top.

This year the wearables market will ship 22 million units, an increase of 129 percent from last year. These gains will continue, and will lead to a 128 million shipments market by 2018.

"Wearables are poised to be the perfect gift for the person who has everything this Christmas," said CCS Insight director of forecasting Marina Koytcheva. "We believe this will fuel strong growth in the final quarter of 2014 for smart bands, particularly fitness trackers, which will account for more than half of the 35 million wearables in use at end of 2014."

Koytcheva said that present market figures are good, but device makers need to do more work and make particular effort to make more appealing devices.

"This is particularly acute when it comes to devices for women: wearables need to quickly move on from black, clunky devices; fortunately we're starting to see the first steps in this direction."

Presently fitness bands dominate the market and smartwatches are in second place, according to CCS. This is likely to change by 2018 when smartwatches will take over, and account for more than half of the market.

Wearable cameras will be the third most popular, though by a large margin, while others - such as tokens and jewellery - will take an even smaller three percent, and eyewear will get an even smaller sliver, with just two percent.